"I am fully convinced that the Siege will not last more than twelve days more and that Cornwallis & his troops must in that time be ours."Major General Benjamin Lincoln to his wife, October 12, 1781

On May 12, 1780, Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston, South Carolina, and his army of 5,000 soldiers to the British. That fall, he rejoined the Continental Army when he was exchanged for a British and a German general, who had been captured at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.

At Yorktown, as senior ranking major general, he was second-in-command of the American forces and also commanded a division of the Continental Army, consisting of seasoned soldiers from New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. His troops shared duties with the other two divisions and were usually in the siege lines every third day of the siege.

After the siege, Lincoln oversaw the return of troops and military equipment to New York. Shortly thereafter he assumed a congressional appointment to a new post, Secretary of War. In explaining his decision to remain in government service, rather than return to his family, Lincoln wrote his son: "the growing encroachments of Britain would ? have fallen with too much weight on the necks of my Children and would have deprived them of ?the sweetness of life, and which to preserve are among the duties enjoined on us by our creator & supreme benefactor - If therefore in pursuit of my just object some things should appear which should look like neglect of my dearest ? you will not I trust indulge such an idea ? explain this matter to your Brothers & Sisters."

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